The Bank of Japan on Thursday put off additional monetary easing and maintained its assessment from the previous month that the economy is "starting to recover moderately."

Expressing confidence that the country's 15-year struggle with deflation is seeing signs of improving, the central bank said that the "rate of change in the consumer price index has turned positive" and that expectations for inflation "appear to be rising on the whole."

Movement of the CPI index "is on the same path as our forecast," BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference following a two-day Policy Board meeting.